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Friday, 18 March 2016

Lake Mackenzie to Walls of Jerusalem

I had unfinished business with this walk. Follows of my blog will know about my failed attempt late last year. PREVIOUS FAILED ATTEMPT

We have had some bad fires in the general area so it was an opportunity to see the damage and to also finally make this trip successful.

I had planned to meet up with a forum member who I have walked with in the past. He is an experienced walker and it gave me a lot more confidence of getting this trip done.

We drove one car to the Walls car park and then drove the other back around to the start of our walk at Lake Mackenzie.

The sun was still low so we were off to an early start.

The fire damage was more prominent at the start of the walk going up the Blue Peaks track.

Ill keep my views in regards to the fires, the damage, the regeneration and non regeneration and what should of or could of been done out of this blog. But I will say that it is a part of life and every where I walk there is evidence of fire in past years if you look hard enough.

It didn't take us long to make our way to Middle Lake and unlike last time we used my research for the navigation and easily made it around the Lakes....on the Eastern side this time ;)

Native Pines burnt in fires in years gone by. They do not regenerate.

We stopped for lunch at an appropriate spot and continued on well into the late afternoon.

By late afternoon we had made it far enough that you could now see Mount Jerusalem in the background.

We were both well and truly ready to find a camp site and set up camp. Which we did, had tea and climbed into bed on dark as it was a freezing night.

The next day was starting out to be another beautiful day and one that would hopefully see us at Dixons Kingdon by days end.

We basically navigated our way towards that large land mark on the path of least resistance through some really nice bush.

It was only a few short hours into our day and we were on our last little peak and able to get a good view of Mount Jerusalem and our final destination for the day.

And by early afternoon we had successfully navigated our way to the board walk in the Walls of Jerusalem NP.

We decided to set up camp, have a late lunch and spend the rest of the day climbing Jerusalem and generally relaxing around camp. We had spent the best part of two days walking over heavy terrain so we were happy enough to relax for a while.

The walk up to the summit.

Back at camp to look around Dixons Kingdom.

The next morning the fog was low but we were hopeful of it lifting so we could climb another mountain on the way out.

But sadly by the time we were walking through the central walls it was still very misty so we decided to not bother climbing any mountains but to walk an alternative way out.

Not long after Wild Dog Creek we turned off the main track and went looking for a little known hut in the area called Solitary Mans Hut.

We found it easy enough.....with the aid of some well marked maps!

A remarkable hut by a remarkable man!

We continued on to make our way back to Trappers Hut.

Back down the big hill to the Parks entrance and that would end our trip.

We walked around 40 or so kilometres over approx. 2 and half days on some pretty heavy terrain on the off track sections so we knew we had done a walk. But it was great to finally achieve this after my first failed attempt.